


Touch Me

by chillafterdark



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillafterdark/pseuds/chillafterdark





	Touch Me

Will was never shy to touch him, to reach across the table and take Chris’ hands in his own, to grasp his elbow as they walked together, to brace his hand on the small of Chris’ back. It’s different; intoxicating really. It makes his skin hum and break out in goose bumps, makes his hair stand on end and his eyes flutter closed. It’s unfamiliar territory, being given this and being allowed to give it back with such frequency and fierceness.

It’s not about sex (except for when it is). It’s about fingers and hands and skin, grasping and holding and touching. It’s the things he dreamed about having when he was younger—when he was alone. Growing up, touch was rarely a good thing, rarely something he wanted or desired from anyone around him. Avoiding it just seemed like the easiest thing. But even in his juvenile sense of safety he dreamed of touches and of kisses that one day he might experience for real.

Will knows touch; knows how to touch. When Chris’ stomach is squirming, or when the voices in his head get so loud that he can’t think or ask for help, a hand slides up his forearm and dips into the crook of his elbow, holding there like an anchor preventing him from drifting out to sea. It’s something he doesn’t even realize he needs until he receives it. When his whole body feels on edge about Coachella and about being near so many unpredictable people, he doesn’t have to say  _‘I need you’_ _’._  He just feels their fingers tangle together and Will’s forehead press into his temple as if to say _‘I’m here for you’_ ; something Chris never had before.

It is complicated in his head, to be this involved. He feels like a fish out of water; a sudden sense of starvation in the bottom of his airborne heart. It feels like falling. He used to be afraid of falling but he’s not anymore. Not when he knows Will is there to catch him.

Holding someone, being held by someone, is so strikingly intimate and so unlike hugging his parents or his sister or his friends. When Will wraps his strong arms around Chris’ shoulders or around his waist and holds them firmly together, bodies pressed tight, hands pressed against his back, he feels everything click into place. It’s okay if that chapter doesn’t get finished today, it’s okay that another director said no to taking on his project, it’s okay to cry and feel defeated and just absolutely  _need_  to be held so the world doesn’t feel like it’s ending. Being that vulnerable around another human being is terrifying, absolutely terrifying. It’s hard to reciprocate at first when he feels so out of his element. But then everything changes.

It gets hard  _not_  to touch, like a flood all at once. The grounding capabilities of a simple touch overwhelm his senses. The palms of Will’s hands; the weathered dip between his thumb  and forefinger where Chris’ fingers fit perfectly are like heaven when his mind becomes his own worst enemy. It gets harder when he is deprived, when he can’t touch when he wants to the most.

When they both finish mentally preparing themselves for the SAG Awards Chris says,

_“Are you ready?”_

Will says,

 _“Always.”_  And squeezes Chris’ hand a final time. When they walk down the red carpet and Chris can’t feel the warm skin of Will’s palm in his hand it aches in such an unfamiliar way. But Will does his best when they brush past each other, standing so close everyone around them must be able to notice it, and that is enough to get him through.

Chris never thought he would feel so strongly about another person. In his largely solo and self-propelled career of filming and book writing, there was never time to imagine such a fantasy would become a reality for him.

Until Will. Until he loved and felt loved in returned in a way that does not exist outside of soul mates (which Chris didn’t even believe in until Will), outside of being in love with the person who completes you in a way that is so textbook and so cliché, it should to be criminal. Maybe that’s why it’s so good, maybe that’s why it works. It’s startlingly clear all at once that this, is love. To reach out his hand and know that someone will be there to hold it. To look up at the ceiling over his bed and hear Will breathing next to him instead of overwhelming silence.

To be able to run his hands down Will’s arms, over his chest and down his back and feel him, and to make Will feel. To feel the steady thump of Will’s heartbeat under his fingers, a lifeline where they’re both connected in a way that’s still overwhelming to Chris.  Because he knows that he is embedded deep inside that beating heart just as much as Will has crept his way into his. And he loves it.


End file.
